Georg Jensen presents reissued archival jewellery in Paris
Creative director Paula Gerbase celebrates Georg Jensen’s rich jewellery heritage with 11 pieces from the archive
Georg Jensen has a rich jewellery heritage, with a distinctive aesthetic defined by a sleek minimalism. Artist-makers including Kim Naver, Nanna Ditzel and Vivianna Torun Bülow-Hübe shaped a lasting design heritage in the second half of the twentieth century, establishing a sleek, sensual design eponymous with Danish design principles.
It is a history Georg Jensen referenced at 2026’s Matter and Shape in Paris (6-9 March), unveiling a new collection of reissued archive jewellery called The Collector. Creative director Paula Gerbase has curated 11 pieces from the Copenhagen archive, resisting the notion of a jewellery collection as we would typically understand it – rather, each piece here is symbolic of a singular jewelled artwork.
‘This collection of distinctive pieces came about quite naturally – with the intention of being led by instinct and exploration,’ Gerbase says. ‘Rather than looking for classical cohesion, the approach was focused on individual expression, a certain eccentricity and works which had presence as standalone [pieces] in an ensemble of harmonious opposition.’
For Gerbase, it is key that the female artist-makers who created the pieces remain at the heart of the house’s creativity today in a natural extension of Georg Jensen’s historical support for emerging artists. ‘The Lunning Prize [Georg Jensen’s craft prize, which ran from 1951 to 1970] was an incubator of world-class talent,’ Gerbase adds. ‘It brought works by Scandinavian creative talents across a wide range of modalities, and then extended winners an invitation for open-ended play and experimentation in the Copenhagen silversmithy in collaboration with the artisans. It’s this spirit of freedom of exploration which I adopted, approaching the archive not with a set idea of what a collection might look like but rather allowing for more instinctive curiosity in my choices.’
The reissued jewellery shares a commitment to sensual forms and pared-back, simple silhouettes. ‘The curation of the collection has been an education in these women’s practices, and a study in how artistic expression evolves through time,’ says Gerbase.
